1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image processing system, and more particularly, to an image processing method and apparatus to print an image with the same colors as those displayed on a display screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each monitor, scanner, and printer has a different range of expressible colors. Thus, a color which can be expressed by a monitor may not be expressed by a printer, and vice versa. Hard proof and soft proof methods have been developed to solve these problems. These proof methods are used to print an image on a printing medium with the same colors as those displayed on a monitor. The hard proof is a method of confirming reproduced colors of an image by directly printing the image using a printer. The soft proof is a method that allows a user watching a monitor to directly check the colors of an image to be printed on a printing medium via the monitor by providing a color preview function.
Graphic editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Correl Draw, is an image processing application which provides soft proof methods to users. A conventional soft proof method using this image processing application will now be schematically described.
An image processing application having a conventional soft proof function includes an input profile, a monitor profile, and a printer profile. When a digital image obtained by a scanner is provided as a file, the image processing application performs color conversion of the digital image using the input profile. The input profile is used to color-convert an image of a device-dependent color space to an image of a device-independent color space. The monitor profile and the printer profile are used to color-convert the image of the device-independent color space to a second image of a second device-dependent color space.
The device-dependent color spaces include an RGB color space and a CMYK color space. The RGB color space is used to express a digital image obtained by a scanner and reproduce colors on a monitor. The CMYK color space is used for printing. A CIE Lab color space and a CIE XYZ color space defined by International Color Consortium (ICC) are device-independent and called a Profile Connection Space (PCS) or a PCS color space, respectively. Image data converted using the input profile is expressed in the PCS color space. Thus, a device-independent color adjustment can be performed using the image processing application having the conventional soft proof function.
The image processing application sets the monitor profile when performing soft proof of the image data. The monitor profile can be set by a user selecting one of a plurality of ICC monitor profiles. After the monitor profile is set, the image processing application provides a dialogue box on a monitor screen, thereby allowing the user to perform a color adjustment, e.g., adjustment of brightness, contrast, and saturation. The image processing application performs the adjustment of brightness, contrast, and saturation in response to a color adjustment command input by the user through the dialogue box. By doing this, for a single digital image, the reproduced colors of an image displayed on the monitor screen match the reproduced colors of an image printed on a printing medium. Thus, as a result of the soft proof, the user can see that the colors of the image expressed on the monitor are the same as the colors of the printed image.
As described above, when the soft proof is performed using the graphic editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Correl Draw, an image displayed on a monitor screen and an image printed on a printing medium have almost the same colors regardless of color spaces of the monitor and printer.
However, when a user does not have the graphic editing software, the user cannot use the soft proof function, and the user prints a displayed image without the soft proof function. In addition, the user may be prevented from using the software due to high costs of the software.
Japanese Patent Publication No. H11-078132 discloses a conventional printer driver having a printer setting unit setting printer setting conditions of a printer through a menu screen, a memory unit storing printer setting information set by the printer setting unit together with a print file name, and a compensation unit compensating for printing information based on the printer setting information and the print file name when printing.
The conventional printer driver provides a dialogue box allowing a user to change setting items like brightness, contrast, and saturation, but does not provide a soft proof function for color matching between an image printed on a printing medium and an image displayed on a monitor. In addition, the conventional printer driver cannot perform a fine color adjustment because information on a change sequence of the setting items is not stored.